Button Blues
by FeathersMcStrange
Summary: In which Deb watches Joe make the rounds talking to the (his) kids, and makes buttons to avoid her feelings about what she sees, the people she works with, and her own place in the shop. (found family, joe being a DadTM, and deb and lucas are very similar people.)


So I watched empire records last night... Now I'm emotional and outraged there's not much fic... Well... Here's my contribution

(Disclaimer: This is almost absolutely not how button makers work. I have no idea. I've never seen one.)

Lemme know what you think. Have a favorite bit? Tell me! I love to hear what people's favorite parts are.

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There's a quality of the music booths Deb has noticed which causes people to act as though nobody else can see them, free to be themselves for a while. Deb herself feels safer in them, sits in the little booth with the record player and the emotions of countless strangers still soaked into the walls, and feels guarded. She doesn't often go in there to actually listen to music, more because she likes the shelter of the walls and the security of being in the most enclosed place in the record shop. There isn't a lace in this world that feels safer to Deb than the music booths in the record shop.

One of her favorite things to do is sit in one of those booths and do paperwork. Deb has always been better with paper than people. Better with paper than people and better with buttons than paper, she thinks, pinning a fresh metal circle to the front of her shirt.

Another thing Deb likes about the music booths is the opportunity to observe. From her hideout she gets to glimpse things that otherwise would have remained secrets, known only to those involved. For example, from her current unnoticed vantage point, Deb can see Joe, making his slow way around the store, stopping whenever he runs into the ragtag group of miscreants that Deb, in her head, refers to as 'the kids'.

She watches, button maker under her hands, as he walks past AJ, just in time to shoot out a hand and catch the boy by the shirt, right as he trips over a wrinkle in the carpet, setting hi right again. Deb smirks and punches some keys on the button maker, pocketing the result.

Corey seems to be next on Joe's Covert Fussing Checklist, and when she sees where he's heading, Deb switches her focus to the girl standing reshelving CDs.

Corey's face, partially obscured by a sheaf of dark brown hair, doesn't bear the usual easy seeming smile. She looks tired. She always look stored when she thinks there's no one around to see her. Tired and sad.

Deb watches Joe walk up to her and say a few quiet words, to which Corey responds by smiling a little and giving a short, inaudible answer. It isn't the usual smile, but instead the one Deb has come to recognize as her real one. Soft and small, shy and a little awkward.

Once again inspired, Deb's fingers pick out the keys, another button stuck into her pocket.

Joe moves on and Deb finds herself captivated, unable to stop following his circuit around the room. This time he doesn't approach right away, watches Gina pull off a receipt, tap her fingers on the counter as she does some rapid fire math in her head, then dart around the counter to chase down an exiting customer who received the wrong change by accident.

Joe calls something after her, the thumbs up he follows it with betraying his message to Deb. Gina flushes with pride at the praise, and Deb knows Gina would kill her for the nugget of understanding it brings her about just who Gina is.

The button that comes out of that one makes Deb snort to herself, thinking this will either go very well or very badly.

It's the next part that is simultaneously the most understated, seemingly without meaning, and the most telling. Joe, appearing to be on his way back to his office, passes by Lucas, who's standing in the middle of an isle staring at nothing in particular, like he's trying to recapture a train of thought that up and got away from him. As his path crosses Lucas's line of sight, Joe sticks out a hand and wordlessly ruffles Lucas's hair.

The look on Lucas's face is what really does it for Deb. For one moment, the only thing readable in his features is stark, open surprise. Quickly, so quickly that Deb almost misses it, the shock melts into something else, the same implacable something that appears on his face with every act of casual affection bestowed upon him. It's a look that Deb can't place in words but understands the nature of so intimately, so personally, that she has to look away.

It's too much like looking at her own reflection to be at all comfortable.

Another button then, if only for the distraction she won't admit it is.

The next time she looks up it becomes clear Deb got it wrong in her assumption that, when he passed Lucas, Joe was headed towards his office. As it turns out, there is one more stop on his tour of the shop, and Joe is headed straight for where he has spotted her in the music booth.

Deb makes another button.

"Nice pin," Joe tells her when he reaches her, voice even and neutral. She looks down, sees the black on white circle of metal affixed to her shirt.

 _Dead Girl Walking_.

She grins sardonically and says, "Made one for you, too," handing it to him. He looks at it. Laughs.

The strongest, most bold font she could find. _Mr. Mom_.

"Thanks, kid." He pats her on the shoulder before taking off towards his office for real this time, button in hand. Deb pretends she doesn't know exactly what her face looks like right now, pretends it isn't identical to that look she saw on Lucas not even a minute ago.

With the effort of a person who's been sitting in one place for too long, Deb hauls herself to her feet, following the same trajectory Joe had earlier, putting her in collision with AJ first.

She says nothing, slapping the button against his chest and moving on her way.

Block black font on neon yellow. _HAZARD_.

Corey is next, and Deb doesn't explain herself this time either, fastening the metal through Corey's sweater fabric.

White on pink. _WLCM 2 STPFRD_.

"Milady," Deb says in the most sarcasm infused voice she can muster, presenting Gina with her impromptu gift, laid on the counter beside the register.

Curly-cues and lavender. _PhD Barbie._

It's as close to complimenting Gina as Deb's ego will let her get. Gina seems to take it for what it is, immediately pinning it on with a wide grin.

Finally, there's one button left in her hand, one stop on the route.

"Last but not least," Deb says to Lucas, handing him the button. He stares at it for a minute, and it looks like his face is locked in a civil war with itself, trying at once for a smirk and that same look from earlier, the one Deb can't force herself to name.

Two words, understated lowercase, white on navy blue. _worth it._

It's a double meaning, a brag and a reminder, something Deb knew he would appreciate on one hand, and need to hear sometimes on the other.

On her way back to her hideout, feeling a weird sense of satisfaction with herself, Deb remembers that unexpected final step in Joe's circuit around the store.

' _Last but not least._ ' Well. Not quite.

When it's her turn up at the register, Deb walks over with a different button on this time, one that makes Lucas smile at her as she walks past him.

Black on white again. Still three words.

 _Work In Progress._


End file.
